2006 Softball

Catie Richman

Diary Ten (May 1, 2006) - So here we are in the last week of school. It's kind of crazy around here between
practice and everyone trying to study for exams, but we make it work. We played our
last 4 games this week and we ended up losing all 4 unfortunately. That now puts us
in 4th place for our conference.

I didn't have any exams today or none tomorrow so that gives me some free time to
pack some things up and study for exams, its very different having all of the free
time on my hands. Today we had practice, which went pretty well. We started off in
the locker room discussing about what this teams needs from each other and as individuals.
Then it was down to the field to take off the tarp. Practice was pretty basic just
going over fundamentals, hitting and the pitchers did their workouts.

We leave on Thursday for Indianapolis for our HCAC Tourney in which we play Friday
morning at 9 am. As the time draws closer and closer we are starting to realize that
this is when it really counts to see what we are made of. All of the times we woke
up at 4 AM, sprints, workouts, staying extra to work on things individually, our blood,
sweat and tears we have poured into this season all comes down to this weekend. We
need to come out strong, intense and prove everyone wrong who has ever doubted us
this season.

It's hard to believe that my sophomore year is almost over and I'm going to be a junior!
As another year comes and goes you meet new people, start new friendships and learn
so many things. This year by far I have learned the most not only about my teammates
but about myself as well. About how much I'm willing to give to this team so we can
be successful. I hope next year I learn just as much and even more as I did this year.
Its off to Indy on Thursday Lets Go Beavers!

Diary Nine (April 24, 2006) - Greetings from the Beavers! What a great weekend we had .Saturday was our home
game vs Franklin and we came out to play Beaver Ball, and we did we ended up winning
the first game 6-2 and the second game in a thrilling, heart-stopping game 5-4. These
two wins puts us on a six game winning streak and 7-3 in our conference. Tomorrow
we take on our rival Defiance and then Saturday our last home game vs Anderson, then
it's all what we have been working so hard for and that's the conference tournament
in Indiana.

I have come to realize that there are only four games left until the season is over,
minus conference. This year has gone by so fast and I'm very anxious and eager to
learn a few more things within in the next few days of practice. It seems like just
yesterday I was waking up at 5am for practice. And even though all of us would moan,
groan and complain about anything and everything sometimes, we have all made it through
and here within the next few weeks is our home stretch of what this team is really
made up of.

This is one of my favorite quotes: "You carry on no matter what are the obstacles.
You simply refuse to give up - and, when the going gets tough, you get tougher. And,
you win"-Vince Lombardi. I feel this is a quote our team relates to very much! We
have had obstacles during the season but we never gave up on each other or ourselves.
Those tough times are what has made us a strong team, and now that we have a stronger
team, we are winning and doing so with excellence! I hope we continue to grow stronger
each day and hopefully in the end all of our strength will pay off. Go Beavers, Beat
Defiance!

Dairy Eight (April 20, 2006) - Hi All! So we traveled to Hanover on Thursday and beat them the first game 12-0
and they had to forfeit the second game 7-0 because they only have 10 players. Getting
those two wins felt great. We came out strong and stayed on top. After Hanover, we
got back to school, packed up and everyone headed home for Easter break. Break was
very good, but I think it went by way to fast. We didn't have classes on Monday but
we had to come back for practice starting at 4:00.

Practice on Tuesday went very well we concentrated on bunting and realized that we
have to execute the bunt and get them down when we need too. Yesterday was our home
game vs. Manchester and we were all hungry for another win so we came out strong and
won the first game 3-1. We had to keep this feeling of winning, playing well and never
giving up because it's never enough. We did because we won the second game 3-1 as
well. After winning 4 games in a row, it feels really good. We are all playing very
well right now and need to continue our hard work. Going into yesterday's game, I
was kind of unsure how we would play, it seems sometimes we play well and other days
we can't get it together. Our next game is home on Saturday vs Franklin, I hope we
continue to bring our game and play Beaver ball like we know how!

It's near the end of the season and knowing that classes and softball are almost over
for some of us, we need to make sure we have fun! We play a lot better when we have
fun and just do what we do. For me I want to have lots of fun, this is my sophomore
year in which I feel that it's a time for me to take my skills that I have learned
and applied them, but I also have room to grow as well. Whatever you try to learn,
you might as well make it as fun as possible. Our team has learned a lot about each
other and as individuals, and we still have plenty more to learn in the last few weeks
of playing the sport we all love to play. Franklin is coming here Saturday hope to
see you all at our game Go Beavers!

Diary Seven (April 12, 2006) - The games at Denison went well and Betts pitched awesome! Our second game at Denison
was our first international tie breaker for this season and was very exciting to watch.
After our games at Denison, Saturday we headed to Michigan to play Albion. And yesterday
we had our second home game of the season versus Huntington. I always look forward
to home games because we don't have to travel and my family always comes to cheer
us on. I was especially excited to see my twin brother since he has been overseas
studying abroad in London, it gave me the opportunity to show him how I have improved
my game. We ended losing both games to Huntington, but hopefully we can recover from
these losses and keep our heads up as we prepare to make the 4-hour trip to Hanover
tomorrow morning.

Practices seem to be going well. For me, I always look forward to practice knowing
that this is another opportunity for me to improve my skills either on defense, offense
or learning lessons about life from my teammates and coaches. At practice on Monday,
Coach asked us what we need to do to make the rest of this season fun. We all had
our share of thoughts about that and I need to remember what my teammates said to
make the rest of the season fun and to go all out.

I personally feel that I have improved greatly this season on and off the field. I'm
a well-rounded player and my hitting has improved greatly. I just have to keep working
hard to be the best I can be for teammates, coaches and myself.

Knowing that this season is almost over, there is no reason not to have fun while
not holding anything back, what do I have to lose? Conference tournament is coming
up fast and I'm hoping through all of our hard and intense practices throughout this
season, tournaments will be our opportunity to be at the top of our game and prove
to everyone what type of team we are and how to play Beaver Ball. We need to keep
improving and fighting to be all we can be, like I said earlier what do we have to
lose? It's off to Hanover tomorrow .GO BEAVERS!

Diary Six (April 3, 2006) - WOW, what a weekend! We started off by playing Transylvania, the team that we want
to beat the most this season, for the fact that they are ranked #1 in preseason poll
and we are #2. Game time had finally arrived and the first game was a hard fought
battle. Our offense got going by having some great hits and smart base running. But
our defense wasn't enough to hold the Pioneers in the first game as we lost 5-4. We
knew after losing the first game we were all fired up and wanted to win the second
game, but unfortunately we got run ruled the second game, 14-5, which left us all
stunned. The second game we beat ourselves. Transy came out and had some good hits
and I will give them credit that they are a great team. But, when they have great
hits we have to be able to stop the runners from crossing home plate so many times.
Right now we are 0-2 in the HCAC.

After traveling from Kentucky and spending the night in the hotel in Cincinnati, we
were finally ready for our game versus Mount St Joe on Sunday. It was raining in Cincinnati
on Saturday so the field was very wet and muddy, but we still managed to play both
games. Our first game we came out strong having 4 players cross home plate, but for
some reason we feel that if we score 4 runs we are going to win and that's not the
case. We lost our 3rd game of the weekend to Mount St. Joe 7-4.

All week, Coach has been wanting us to dig deep and find that desire that makes us
light up to play Beaver ball, have confidence in ourselves and within each other.
All of our losses made us decide to learn from them and move on to play our last game
of the weekend. No matter what it would take, we were going to go home with a win.
The second game we came out stronger than ever, we all had the fire inside of us that
we found. Our defense was phenomenal and our offense was amazing as we won the second
game versus Mount Saint Joseph 13-0! Now that we know we can play "Beaver Ball" we
want to keep it that way. We now know what we are capable of and what is expected
of us we just need to keep the fire burning. Our next game is tomorrow at Denison
which doesn't start until 5 and it's a 3 hour trip, it's going to be late until we
get back, but it's all going to be worth it. Watch out Denison, there is a big ball
of fire coming your way .until next time!

Diary Five (March 31, 2006) - Hello All, first I would like to apologize to all of you for not updating sooner.
Being a college student you have a lot of responsibilities to fulfill, so I'm hoping
to do a much better job of updating than what I have been.

Since the last time I have updated we have played many games in various types of weather.
Everything from sun to playing in 26 degree and snow in Cleveland at Case Western,
I felt like I was playing in one huge snow globe. The thing I find it hard to believe
is that we are 7-8! We have a lot of talented players on this team, yet it seems like
on game days we just can't pull it all together.

Practices have been going very well. Coach has been focusing more on our mental game
than physical. She knows we can all run, hit, bunt, catch and throw, but our mentality
of the game needs to increase. Errors don't win ball games, especially mental ones!
Even though we have rough practices on some days, I find myself growing more confident
in myself and in my teammates, and I hope it keeps on rising!

This weekend is our weekend trip to play Mount St. Joe and Transylvania. We are so
pumped and ready to play considering these are our first conferences games we play.
We were supposed to leave this morning at 10:30 to play Mount St. Joe which is in
Cincinnati then head to Kentucky tomorrow to play Transylvania but coach just e-mailed
us and said that it is raining in Cincinnati so they cancelled the game today, which
means we leave tonight at 6:00 and spend the night in Lexington, KY, to play Transylvania
tomorrow then head back to Cincinnati to play Mount on Sunday.

This should be a lot of traveling for us but we also have to make sure all of our
school work is done since we will not be back until Sunday and all of us have classes
on Monday. With lots of traveling we will be tired but this is just another great
opportunity for us to hang out with teammates while riding in the vans and of course
playing softball. Mount and Transy, ready or not here come the Beavers!

Diary Four (March 13, 2006) - So we finally arrived back into the Buckeye State with a lot of good memories and
for myself some pretty good tan lines. We got back yesterday around 1:30 after driving
through Tennessee and Kentucky. I believe most of us came back here and took a nice
long nap since we were pretty tired from all of the traveling. I'm pretty glad to
be back because I have missed my friends and just want to get back into my normal
routine again, but oh how I miss the 80-degree weather compared to the rain that we
are currently getting here.

Overall, Florida was amazing, everything from spending time with the girls to playing
softball! If I had to say anything about Florida for myself I believe that it was
a learning experience. I learned not only a lot about the team but about myself as
well. How much do I really have to sacrifice and give to make this team successful?
I guess whatever it takes! Our team is starting to realize what are our strengths
and weaknesses are, what works and what doesn't, and what our roles are. In Florida,
obviously everything didn't go perfectly, but I think that is what is going to make
our team stronger. To look at our mistakes, analyze them, learn from them and move
on and focus on the next game ahead of us.

As of right now we are back into our normal schedules, as in going to classes, meetings
and practice. Our first game is on Wednesday at Ohio Northern and our first home game
is Saturday at 1:00 vs. Alma. We are going to practice really hard and focus on the
things we feel we need to work on more as a team and individually. Hopefully through
all of the hard work we will put into practice this week we will come away with two
wins vs. ONU and Alma. Come out and support your Beavers on Saturday, be there or
be square!!

Diary Three (March 9, 2006) - Greetings once again from the sunshine state! Tuesday we played our next two games.
Our first game was at 8:50 vs. Wartburg and our second game was at 10:40 vs. Wittenberg.
The first game I thought we came out tough, I will give credit to Wartburg they are
a very good softball team, but we didn't come out tough enough losing our first game
of the tournament 1-0. The second game of the day vs. Wittenberg we struggled a lot.
We couldn't get our offense or defense going and lost our second game of the tournament
6-0. Tuesday was a rough day in general not only physically from playing in the sun
but also mentally. We were all pretty beat after our games and we had a team meeting
and a player meeting as well. Through these meetings I kept thinking to myself, what
does it take to come out with a win? It not only takes hard work, excellence and team
work, but it's also something that you have to search deep down inside for. What are
you willing to sacrifice for yourself to help your team win? We decided to learn from
these two losses and move on and focus on the next days games. Since Tuesday was not
the greatest Coach decided to take us out that night for a game of putt-putt golf
to give us the chance to have some fun and chill.

We knew after our rough day on Tuesday that on Wednesday we needed to come out strong
and on top in which we did. Wednesday we played Baldwin-Wallace at 8:50 and came out
with a 5-4 win. This game we played Beaver Ball, the softball that we know how to
play. We wanted to keep the momentum going strong and never let up. Our second game
we played Thiel at 12:30, in which that game we played our best ball ever coming out
on top with a 9-1 win in 5 innings. This win gave us a major confidence boost. Since
our games were done around 2:00 we had the whole afternoon and evening to spend some
quality team bonding time. Around 7:00 went all went to the mall and did some more
shopping like always but the fun came after the mall.

Driving to our games we always see these two large towers in the air and always wondered
what they were, well we found out! These two towers belong to the ride that's called
The Sling Shot. This ride holds 2 people, you get in they lower you down and you get
shot up 375 ft up in the air at 120 m.p.h and go 6 g's. Of course most of the team
did it and let me tell you what an adrenaline rush! If you like rides that give you
a thrill, you have to ride The Sling Shot!!!

Our games we played today went well as we came away with our first win of the day
vs Waynesburg 4-2 and getting a second thrilling victory vs Maryville 2-1 in 8 innings
of a hard fought game. We hope to take these last four wins over the last two days
and have it give us confidence to keep playing well and working hard. We play our
last two games tomorrow in the sun, dirt and green grass and hoping for two more wins!
Lets Go Beavers!!

Diary Two (March 6, 2006) - Greetings from Florida everyone!!! After leaving on Friday at 3:00 p.m. and driving
12 hours in the van we finally arrived at 2 am in Atlanta to spend the night at the
hotel. We woke up by 7:30 and were back on the road by 8:30 for the 2 hr drive to
Valdosta State University to practice. After a mentally tough practice we stopped
for lunch then were back on the road for another 4 hours until we crossed into Florida.
We finally arrived at our house Saturday night around 8:00 p.m. and we were all beat
from the traveling, but we were excited because Sunday we got to sleep in until 9
or so compared to waking up at 4:30 a.m. for practice.

Sunday we chilled here at the house until it was time to get ready for our games.
We all got ready and left here around 2:00 so we were at the field on time for our
game vs. Averett at 4:10 and Misericordia at 6:00.

Its finally game time, we were all so excited to be playing out in the sun and in
the grass instead of in the gyms. It was a warm one though, now I understand why coach
made us wear sweatshirts some days while running. Our first game vs Averett we came
out a little shaky and nervous but we pulled it together and came away with a 5-4
win. Our second game we settled down and got our offense going strong with some big
hits as well as some great defensive plays and came out with our second win of the
day 1-0. After playing our first two games in Florida we realized some of our strengths
as a team as well as our weaknesses. Our strengths we would like to continue what
we are doing and our weaknesses with some more hard work, dedication, and team work
we will accomplish what we are trying to achieve.

Today (Sunday) was our only day off. The girls whose parents came went out with the
parents while the 8 of us "orphans" for this trip went out with the coaches for the
day. We went to Cocoa Beach went swimming, played some football, tired to build a
sand castle and of course buried someone, and that someone was me. After the beach
we went out to lunch, then to the outlet malls for some shopping.

After a fun filled and relaxing day we are here back at the houses getting ready for
a team meeting. Then it's up bright and early tomorrow morning to take on Wartburg
at 8:50 a.m. and Wittenberg at 10:40. I hope you are all enjoying the snowy weather
at home, I know we sure are enjoying it here. GO BEAVERS!!!

Diary One (February 28, 2006) - I can remember the first time my alarm clock went off at 4:30 a.m. just wishing
it were time to leave for Florida for Spring Break. When you hear about waking up
at 4:30 a.m. that doesn't sound too swift, let alone waking up at 4:30 a.m. and doing
lots of physical activity, everything from gut busters to push-ups. For some members
of the team it was a challenge just waking up that early, not to mention getting your
homework done and getting to bed at a decent time, especially in the dorm rooms. I
woke up some mornings and thought that Florida was never going to get here, it felt
like it took forever, but now Florida is only three days away!

This year is a new team with different talents, personalities, strengths and weaknesses.
But through all of that, we have come together and started working hard and with excellence
as a team. Communication is a big part of playing a sport especially since everyone
has different responsibilities with their positions that they play. If there is one
thing that we have had to overcome it is practicing in the gyms. It makes it more
difficult due to limited room, not being in an open atmosphere and it can get really
old, you just want to go outside and play in the dirt and sun. Hopefully once we get
down to Florida where we can play in the dirt and sun we can see that our hard work
is paying off and what things we may still need to work on individually and as a team.

In Florida we will be staying in two houses and not in hotels. Our houses are very
nice and they are only about a block away from each other, so we can always run back
and forth for meetings, dinners or just to do some team bonding. Since we will be
in Florida with each other for 10 days it doesn't really give you that much alone
time. But it also gives our team the opportunity to get to know each other better.
We have all been getting along great so far, so this should be a fun and exciting
experience.

Through all of our hard work and dedication to prepare us for Florida, we are starting
to realize that the time is now only three days and we will see what our team is made
up of. That is why our last three practices in the morning and afternoon are critical.
We will have to stay focused and make sure that we push each other to reach our highest
potential. We have all been waiting for this time and ready or not Florida .here comes
the Bluffton University softball team!